This invention relates to a floor grid for use in keeping animals, comprising juxtaposed bars, which are rectangular or slightly trapezoidal in cross-section, for use in buildings in which animals are kept and which are provided with means for removing flowable dung.
Houses for keeping animals, particularly when newly erected, are often provided with means for removing manure in a liquid state. This has the advantage that the dung is automatically or mainly automatically removed from the building. The stalls area or part thereof consists of a channel or pit, which is covered by a floor grid. Where a pit is provided, the entire sludge contained therein is pumped out over larger intervals of time. A channel extending along the stalls is arranged either at a slight gradient or provided at its end with a small elevation, which serves to retain liquid. The sludge mixture collects in the channels, which are closed at the end by a slidable shut-off gate, which is opened from time to time so that the sludge mixture flows from the channel to a collecting basin disposed outside the building. The floor grid can easily be kept clean with little effort in that it is sprayed with water from time to time.
An essential element of such installation for removing liquid manure is a floor grid, which is composed of numerous arrow bars, which are juxtaposed.
Most of the previously known floor grids are composed of concrete bars, which define gaps between them so that the dung can pass through said gaps or is forced through them by the feet of the animals. Each concrete bar has at least two portions which are enlarged in width and determine the width of the gaps.
These floor grids consisting of concrete bars have the disadvantage that their purchase cost is high, the heavy concrete bars are unwieldy and the heat conductivity is high too. The fact that the animals stand and lie on cold concrete, which is ventilated from below, may result in diseases of the animals or in a decline of their performance. Besides, the liquid manure attacks the concrete and this attack results after some time in a crumbling of the concrete and finally in a breaking of components of the floor grid. Floor grids made from plastics material or wood have similar disadvantages.